ABOUT

Putting a danceable twist on art rock, Krautrock, and avant-garde influences, Chandeliers’ kaleidoscopic electronic jams are artful yet accessible. Together the trio of Chris Kalis, Harry Brenner, and Scott McGaughey played with adventurous indie rock bands like Icy Demons, Killer Whales, and Michael Columbia and began making electronic music in 2004 as an escape from Chicago’s chilly winters, debuting live early the following year at University of Chicago. Their first recording, the Circulation EP, arrived two years later and the albums The Thrush, Dirty Moves, and Roulé (a split with like-minded Chicagoans Mahjongg) revealed more layers of Chandeliers’ entrancing energy. In 2011, Cinema 16 commissioned the group to perform original live scores to Wallace Berman's Aleph; and Elmen Etting's 1933 nature/dance film Oramunde. The grooves continued on the 2012 album Founding Fathers, deemed "one of the most exciting records to come out of the Chicago underground in a long time" by the Chicago Tribune.

Chandeliers have toured with and supported groups such as Shabazz Palaces, Psychic TV, Cluster, Yeasayer and performed at the WIRE Adventures in Modern Music Festival and Tomorrow Never Knows Festival. They have performed the music of Terry Riley, Moondog, Steve Reich, and the Residents. Chandeliers composed a number of live scores, including a live score to the 1981 Hungarian animated film Feherlofia at CIMMFest 2015 and scored the feature film Orders, directed by Eric Marsh and Andrew Stasiulis in 2016. A new single "Cruisin", was released in March 2017 on 7" vinyl and free digital download via Potions Music, a sister label of Cherries Records.

PRESS

"Founding Fathers" is one of the most exciting records to come out of the Chicago underground in a while. While the ensemble is still a fundamentally avant-garde band, the members' love of vintage, synthetic funk drives the sound and makes for danceable songs free of cliche and full of surprises."Chicago Tribune

"The melange of references range from disco to Acid; from Herbie Hancock to House; the colour of psychedelia to the groove of Moroder, all united by a cleaner than clean electronic sound. It’s music for a perfect world, the soundtrack for a club where the dawn never comes and the lights are never turned on."THE WIRE

"One of the best-sounding albums I've heard in a while, full of deep, rich bass and ethereal but warm synth pads, which they apply to novel hybrids of a diverse range of styles—Krautrock, dub, new-agey ambient."Chicago Reader

"Snatches of early Chicago House..and echoes of German experimentalism. What’s unleashed is an endearingly kaleidoscopic, complex world. As evocative as the evocative things it invokes."20JazzFunkGreats

"Chicago's Chandeliers are fantastic without qualification. The foursome plays a sort of DFA disco-rock with a shitton of synthesizer. It makes you wonder why James Murphy is signing a twee lap-pop dude like YACHT when something this great is out there. Fear of getting upstaged? Yes, it's that good. The room, all of it, bobbed and flailed approvingly."Baltimore City Paper